Death of an Escort (9 page)

"Dunno," Gracie said. "It's listed as
suicide. You workin' on it?"

"I am," I said. "The daughter has hired
me."

"Huh," he said. "Come on over and I'll show
you what I got."

We hung up.

At the police station, the receptionist had
to call down to records to see if it was really okay if I went down
there. Gracie told her it was okay, and she let me go, but not
before I'd signed in and put an oversized badge on that designated
me as a visitor.

Then I took the elevator down to the basement
and went over to room A123, the records room.

There was Gracie. He looked like a real
Italian. Black hair and olive skin. I looked like that right now
too, but unlike him, I wasn't really Italian.

He had both ears pierced and had jet black
earring studs in them.

"Bro," he said. "How's it goin'?"

"I'm good, Gracie. What have you been up
to?"

"I'm stayin' home nights now," he said. "No
more partying for me."

"Yeah? Why?" I didn't really care, but I've
noticed people are far more helpful if you act interested in them
first.

"I dunno," he said. "I'm tryin' to be normal,
right?"

"Good luck," I said.

He looked over at me like I'd called his mom
a bitch. "What?" he said sharply.

"I mean, what's normal? I'm certainly not
normal."

"You seem normal," he said.

"Looks are deceiving." How true.

"Yeah," he said. "Word bro. Let me print up
the photos for you. It's all electronically archived."

I leaned against an island counter that had
papers and computer disks and CDs scattered on it. He went to one
of the computer terminals and punched in some info. A little later
a huge laser printer hummed to life. It fed out three sheets of
paper.

They were closer to him. So he took them and
brought them over to me.

"Here's what we got," he said. He handed them
to me.

Chapter 8

"Thanks," I said distractedly as I started to
study them. There were three pictures and each had a different
angle of the body of Kelly Brandt. She had a heavy-duty plastic bag
over her head in all the pictures.

Her pants were black, and I couldn't tell if
they were latex or leather.

Her top was latex. I could tell because of
the glossy reflection of the camera flash off her breasts. And
because of the way it hugged and shrunk around her upper torso.

There were no buttons of any kind.

"Do you know if she had other clothes or
anything else to wear?"

"Don't think so," he said. "That was all they
took pictures of. If there was anything else of interest, they
would have taken a pic of it, you know?"

"Thanks," I said. "This was helpful."

"Done already?"

"Yeah," I said. "What do I owe you?"

"Nah," he said. "But remember if I ever need
to ask you a favor."

"You've never asked me a favor," I said.

He shrugged. "Don't worry about it." And he
buried himself in his work again.

I took that as my sign that it was time to
leave, so I did.

As I got to my car, I'll admit I felt
confused. I knew that Mickey Richardson was a scumbag, and that he
might have a video of Kelly the night she was murdered.

I knew that I had a button that belonged to
the person that hired me, and I knew that she claimed that she
hadn't been at the scene.

And that raised the odd question of how the
button got there. And the other question of did it even matter?

How did you tell what mattered? What was
noise and what actually meant something?

I had no idea.

I decided to drive to CarTech. I'd seen
Carlie, the last to see Kelly alive, wearing a shirt from CarTech.
It was a good guess that she worked there, and as it was early
afternoon now, it was a good guess that she'd be at work working
the first shift.

I'd seen her in the mid or late afternoon the
first time, and she looked like she'd gotten home from some dirty
work. That would place her as a first shift worker in the
factory.

It took about fifteen minutes to drive out
there, and I pulled into the actual employee parking.

I didn't want to go through the front and
sign in and all that. I wanted to wander into the factory and
surprise Carlie. For some reason, I thought that would be a good
idea.

I let myself into the lunchroom on the side
of the building. It was easy enough to find as directly outside the
lunchroom was a patio area. I let myself in and now wondered how I
was going to find Carlie. The place was huge. Through windows on
the inside of the lunchroom, I could look into the plant.

I could see forklifts moving around in the
aisles. Everyone had safety glasses on and was wearing earplugs.
Everything out there had a grayish hue to it.

It sort of looked like a futuristic city in a
way. The four foot aisles were painted on the floor with yellow
paint. They looked like narrow streets.

In between them were the city blocks, I
imagined. Towering up were huge grayish machines, and the dull-eyed
workers operating them moved around and amongst them.

The machine closest to me had to be a press
of some kind. I moved closer to the window to get a better look at
it. It was at least thirty feet tall.

Its inner workings rose up most of that
distance, and then it fell hard on to the surface. Something was
spit out into a large metal bin that looked a little like a trash
dumpster. Then the inner workings rose up higher than twenty feet
again, paused there for a moment, and plunged down.

There was a slight vibration when it hit.
Everything in the lunchroom quivered a little. The sound of the
dull thud when it hit was loud in here; it must be extreme in the
actual shop. That would be why they were all wearing earplugs.

I was still wondering how I was going to go
about finding Carlie, when I noticed a telephone mounted on the
wall closer to the door out to the shop floor.

Under it was a sign. It said, "Push 1115 for
intercom."

I picked up the phone and pressed it to my
ear. There was the normal dial tone. I pressed the four digits
indicated.

The dial tone stopped. The phone seemed dead,
but I noticed those walking by the front of the lunchroom out in
the shop were looking up and then looking over at me.

I must be on, I thought.

"Carlie Smith to the lunchroom. Carlie to the
lunchroom. Thank you," I said. My voice boomed out over the shop
floor. The phone clicked loudly as I hung it up.

Impressive.

I went deeper into the lunchroom, closer to
the exterior wall and away from the interior windows. I didn't
really want her to come and see me right away.

Moments later, the noise volume in the room
increased as someone opened the door from the shop and stepped in.
I waited for a moment, and then I turned around.

It was her.

"You?" she said.

"Have a seat," I said. "Can I buy you a
soda?"

Those must be the magic words because she
walked right towards me and sat.

"I'll have a Mountain Dew," she said.

And now I hoped I had enough change in my
pockets for that purchase. Luckily, I did.

I pushed the coins into the machine's coin
slot and selected a twenty ounce Mountain Dew soda. It came
clanking out of the bottom, and I retrieved it and sat down
opposite her.

"So, I wanted to ask you a question quickly,"
I said. I knew what I was going to ask, and I was already feeling
uncomfortable.

She twisted the top off the soda. "Make it
quick," she said. "I'm not supposed to be on a break right now. I
thought you were my supervisor, but if he catches me here."

I waited for her to finish the thought, but
she didn't.

"Okay," I said. "I'm not going to beat around
the bush on this one. I have a question, and it's not an easy thing
to ask."

She stared hard at me, and she wasn't making
this any easier.

"Go," she said. "Ask. I have to get back on
the floor."

"Okay," I said. "Was your encounter with
Kelly taped?" I had looked down; so I didn't see the facial
reaction, but judging how she went all silent, she wasn't amused by
the question. Finally, I looked up.

She looked like she was going to punch me.
"No," she finally said. It was said in a strained calm voice.

"I have reason to believe that the whole
thing, uh, between you and her was recorded. You don't know
anything about that?"

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"I don't know," I muttered.

"What business is it of yours, you creep?"
Her voice was getting louder.

"So, does that mean you don't know anything
about it?" I asked. This wasn't easy, but I did want to get some
feel for whether or not there was a connection between Mickey and
her. Most likely, she had no involvement, but I didn't want to
assume.

Her hands dropped below the table. "You are
disgusting," she said. "My private life is none of your damn
business. Got it?"

"Last thing," I said quietly. "Have you ever
heard of the website TrueVoyeurLive.com?"

Her hand came up, and I saw an object in her
hand. It was the last thing I saw.

A wad of stinging and burning gunk hit me in
the face. I yelled and put my hands to my eyes. She kept spraying
me. It was pepper spray or mace.

"Creep!" she yelled. "Leave me alone." I
heard her get up, and run back to the shop. The door opened and she
exited.

I was left there writhing on the floor. The
pain, the pain . . . there isn't any way to describe the pain. I'd
rather have sharpened sticks driven into my eye sockets.
Really.

My hands were clamped tightly to my face. I
wasn't rubbing. I wanted to. Oh, I really wanted to, but I
didn't.

That would only make it worse. I learned that
the first two times I'd been hit with pepper spray. Yes, this was
the third time.

Like a blind man, I felt my way for the
outside wall. I found it and stumbled along until I found the door
that led outside.

No one had been on the patio when I came in,
and from what I could tell, no one was there now. I wished someone
had been there to help me.

I had to find my car, blinded. I imagined a
dozen ways I would kill Carlie. Each was more violent and bloody
than the last.

I tripped over a picnic table bench and fell
to the ground. My shin stung, but it was nothing compared to the
feeling of an army of fire ants eating my eyeballs.

My eyes were watering at an extreme rate, and
I must have been a sight, but no one was around to see it.

Water was useless to get pepper spray off.
The stuff can only be removed with petroleum based products, paint
thinner, or acetone. I was heading for my car because I kept a
small can of gas in the trunk for emergencies.

Never did I imagine that would include
washing my face in the stuff, but life is stranger than fiction
they say.

I remembered that I'd parked several cars
over from the door to the lunchroom, and I was in the second row of
cars.

Still, using one hand to guide me, I made my
way out to the parking lot and beyond the first row of cars.

I grunted as I walked into the back of a
truck in the second row. Now I had to make my way to the right. How
many cars over was I? Three, four, six? I didn't really
remember.

Would I be able to recognize my car by the
feeling? Did I know what my car felt like? I doubted it.

But without any other choice, I began making
my way toward the area where I had parked.

I counted out three cars. The third car was
parked with the front out. I could feel the grill, and I knew that
wasn't mine. I had parked pulling in.

The next car had giant fins. It must have
been a car from the Fifties or Sixties when they made cars like
that. It wasn't mine.

The next car felt right. Then I had the idea
to feel for the name of the car. I felt, and I found it. I traced
the letters with my hand. It was Toyota. So was mine.

I trailed my hand across to the other side
feeling for the model name. My hand traced the letters again.
C-O-R-O-L-L-A. My car was a Corolla.

I got my keys out of my pocket and fumbled
around trying to jab the key in the trunk keyhole without looking.
Not very easy.

Finally, I got it, and the trunk popped open.
In the right corner, behind the carjack was a small metal can. It
was about half full of gasoline.

Stuffed next to it were some oily rags. I
took them out too. I sat on the pavement next to my car and for the
first time, took my other hand off my face.

Blindly I tried to get the gas can open. I
heard a car roll by slowly, but no one stopped to help me. The lid
loosened, and I was able to get some dabbed on a rag.

Now I began to clean my face. It smelled
terrible, but I could feel it thinning the viscous mixture and
lessening the amount on my face.

I kept cleaning. Finally, I got my face
cleaned off. Gingerly, I opened an eye. The fumes from the gas
stung it, and it watered more. Using a dry rag, I scrubbed my
face.

Now I was able to open my eyes, but I smelled
like a gas station, and I was quite flammable too.

I decided the best thing would be to wash
here before anything else. So, I locked my trunk and re-entered the
lunch room.

There was a kitchen-styled sink against the
short wall. It was the same wall that had the vending machines
against it.

Here I took paper towel and water, and I
washed. Ten minutes later I was back at my car, and I caught a look
at myself in the rear view mirror. My eyes looked pure red. Way
beyond bloodshot.

But at least, I had the gunk off me, and I
could see again. I looked at my watch. It was almost three in the
afternoon. Carlie would be off work soon, but the little kid sister
might be home from school.